diminuendo

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian diminuendo.

noun

1. (music) A dynamic mark directing that a passage is to be played gradually more softly
2. (music) A passage having this mark
3. (figurative) The gradual dying away of something.
   Thus, in "Flavia and Her Artists" (1905), for example, a fiction of consonance in diminuendo, the French subtext states a set of harmonies (the young American returned from France) and cacophonies (the supercilious French art critic, Roux) shedding light on the main text with its own consonances of intergenerationsl friendship, marital loyalty, artistic pleasure, and joyful lesbianism. 1988, Robert James Nelson, Willa Cather and France: In Search of the Lost Language, page 79
   Harlow gazed, like Henry, out the wide corner window, enjoying the diminuendos of the light. 1998, Edward Abbey, The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel
   Jillian haad the kind of charm that wore off. Or after enough romantic diminuendos, that's what she theorized. 2018, Lionel Shriver, The Standing Chandelier

adv

1. (music) played in this style

adj

1. (music) describing a passage having this mark